Remember Orrin Hatch’s Hanukkah Song?
Orrin Hatch Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis January 2, 2018
Orrin Hatch, the senior U.S. Senator for Utah who announced his retirement plans Tuesday, has spent four decades in the U.S. Senate. He also once wrote a Hanukkah song.
The song, titled “Eight Days of Hanukkah,” was written on the suggestion of Jeffrey Goldberg, now the editor of The Atlantic. Goldberg mentioned the idea in 1999, in an interview for a New York Times Magazine piece about Hatch’s interest in songwriting. Nine years later, after Goldberg mentioned the exchange on his Atlantic blog, Hatch emailed him the lyrics.
In 2009, Hatch recorded the song for Tablet Magazine.
It’s not exactly a classic of the genre. But it’s certainly respectable, as far as Hanukkah songs penned by Mormon U.S. Senators go.
Hatch said in his retirement video that he looks forward to spending more time with his family, but did not mention songwriting among his post-retirement plans. Perhaps he’ll work on a Simchat Torah medley?
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
